Dirty Projectors Prepping "Horror"-Themed Album for Spring 2012

We already knew that Brooklyn-based math-pop outfit Dirty Projectors were hard at work on the follow-up to their beloved 2009 album Bitte Orca. Now, we've got some more news about that much-anticipated collection, which is due out in spring 2012.

As Spin reports, frontman David Longstreth wrote and recorded much of the upcoming album in a secluded house in rural New York, sometimes with his bandmates and sometimes alone. The isolation apparently resulted in some creepy songs, and he told Spin, "A lot of the songs are about horror or fear. Considering the last decade, it just didn't feel right to be making this super exuberant music. It might just be that I was up here in the fucking winter when it was light three hours a day and there's three feet of snow on the ground."

This fixation with horror resulted in a track called "About to Die," which Longstreth called "a 'Thriller'-style song. It's like a monster song, except the monster is the looming spectre of meaninglessness and existential nausea."

As for what the tunes actually sound like, the songwriter said, "In general, this album is much less about colour and arrangements. It's heading in the direction of Mount Wittenberg Orca [the band's collaboration with Björk] in terms of stripping things back a little bit. Also, I feel like I've gotten a lot better at songwriting."

The album is yet to be titled, and Longstreth admitted, "It's not very focused around the idea of an album per se, it's just about making a lot of tunes." That said, he did confirm that it's "pretty close to complete."

While we're waiting for the new album, tide yourself over with the physical version of Dirty Projectors and Björk's Mount Wittenberg Orca, due out October 25 via Domino.

UPDATE: Contrary to some media reports, there will be no Strokes diss track on the new album. To clarify, Longstreth offered the following message: "'maybe that was it' = not a diss track!! julian and i hung last winter, he's a cool dude and we actually might make some music together at some point. the song actually has nothing to do with the strokes' song -- that was just a random joke i made to the spin interviewer, but i guess he didn't get it and it became the headline of his article instead!"